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Chapter 6. We see a lot of detail into the construction of the temple. This is the temple that God had ordained that Solomon was going to build. It's the temple that David had wanted to build unto the Lord. It was in David's heart to build God a temple and God allowed it even though God never commanded a temple to be built. Of course, up to this point, the tabernacle has been used to house the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat and the things for the service of the Lord were all done using the tabernacle, the tabernacle of witness. David said, hey, why does God have a house that's like a tent and we live in these nice houses? He built himself a nice house and he's saying, I think God should have a nice house. And God's like, look, I don't need a house made with hands. I don't need any of it. But since it was in your heart, it was a good thing that was in your heart, I'm going to allow you to do this, but not you, your son. So here we are now, the last chapter, Solomon had basically negotiated and gotten Hyrum to help him to send the supplies, the material, the wood and everything you're going to need to construct this temple. And now we get all the details of this temple here in chapter six. So let's look down there in verse number one. 1 Kings 6, 1, the Bible reads, and it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel in the month Ziph, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. Now, I always pay attention to the numbers that are given in the in the Bible. And I like trying to figure out how does everything, you know, just just get the whole timeline, get the whole history. This is pretty cool because we get a very direct date here, you know, four hundred eighty years after the children of Israel were had come out of the land of Egypt. So we know that David reign for forty years. We know that Saul reign for forty years likewise. And this is in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. So it's been eighty four years of just kings reigning. So that tells us that it's been three hundred ninety six years from the time they came out of Israel until Saul was the first king. So the span of those judges after they came out of Egypt was three hundred ninety six years. Now something caught my eye here and I'm not going to turn to Acts chapter thirteen, because like I said, I always like studying this stuff out and researching this stuff. I'm not going to go into full detail on this tonight. I'm actually preparing a sermon where I'm going to be answering a lot of criticisms on the King James Bible where people say, not criticisms, contradictions, where people say there's contradictions in the Bible. And, you know, this is always something that's kind of interested me a little bit anyways, because when you take the stand that this is God's word, you have to, you know, you ought to be able to answer things within the Bible. And when people bring up, you know, we have faith in God. I wouldn't necessarily just call it blind faith though. Now there's nothing wrong with having blind faith in the Lord because we ought to just trust him with everything anyways. But it's reasonable faith. There's good reason to have faith in God. I mean, Romans chapter one tells us that, you know, people are without excuse that don't know God or claim that there is no God and stuff like that. He's given us plenty of evidence for that. Now, he doesn't give us so much evidence that you could make this solid, you know, airtight case of everything that you're going to find in the Bible. If you're looking for it, you're not going to find it. Okay, how much scrutiny you want to put into, put in the fact that, and that's why our salvation is based on faith. Because if you could prove undoubtedly, undeniably, beyond a shadow of a doubt that something is true, you don't need faith. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, right, the substance of things hoped for. So, we have to have faith in God's word, but it's not without evidence. It's not without reasonableness. It's not without a good degree of understanding and just how things work. And, you know, when you hear the truth, you could recognize it as the truth. But there's this stuck out, and especially with the numbers, these things just stick out at me. And I had done a little bit of studying on this already, and I hope I could find the verse because it's not even in my notes. I know it's in Acts 13. I think it's around verse 18. It says, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so yeah, verse 18, verse 17 says, The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought He them out of it, and about the same time of forty years suffered He their manners in the wilderness. So, we also know that when they came out of Egypt, they were wandering around the wilderness for forty years because of the evil reports that the spies gave about the land. And God's just like, you know what? You know, you're not going to have faith in me after I've already shown you everything that I'm capable of doing, and you don't think I'm capable of bringing you into this land. Now you're not going to get it, except for Caleb and Joshua. Those were the two that brought a good report that, hey, we could do this. You know, God's with us. Let's do it. So, He allowed them to live, but everybody else, that whole generation for forty years, He waited until they died off before He brought them in, right? So, there's another chunk of time when we're looking at this. Remember, up until Saul was king, when they came out of Egypt, there's 396 years there, very clear what we see from 1 Kings chapter 6, right? And 40 of those years was spent wandering in the wilderness. Let's keep reading here. Verse 19, And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet. So now you go, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. That doesn't add up. Doesn't add up, 450 years. According to 1 Kings 6, I mean, there's only 396 years that from the time that came out of Egypt, and this is until Samuel. It's like, wait a minute. How does that add up? What does this mean? Well, these are the types of things that I believe are in the Bible. There's certain things in the Bible, and I don't want to get too deep into this because I'm going to cover this when I do my whole sermon, that if you want to point at something, you know, God puts, I think that a lot of these things are in here because if you want to find any small reason to just discount the Bible, there you go. You're just going to say, well, there it is. And stop seeking anymore. Stop trying to figure out, well, wait a minute. How can this be? What am I, you know, am I reading this wrong? I have got, I'm at the point now, let's be honest with you, that the Bible's been proven to me over and over so many times that if I come across a passage that just seems a little odd, a little, you know, like, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. I'm so strong in the faith now because I've already seen so much proof that it doesn't bother me. Now, it bothers me just because, like, I want to understand it, but there have been things reading the Bible that I haven't understood before and that literally took years before I was finally able to understand what does that mean? And for me, James chapter two is one of those things. When it says faith without works is dead. And for a long time, you know, I heard explanations, but I was still just kind of like, eh, I don't know. It's just not that I doubt, not that I thought salvation was my works, you know, at all, but just the understanding. What does this passage really mean? That was one of those areas. But you know what? Now I have zero problem with James chapter two. I think it's great. I don't think there's a contradiction and everything fits just fine. Logically, there's nothing wrong with that. So when we come across things like this, these are things I like to study, but a couple of things I just want to point out, I'll probably go into this a little bit more in depth when I do that ex-sermon, but it says that after that they gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet. And I believe what this is saying here that the word after isn't referring to a direct time of just after the event. And this is what we would commonly, you might, the reading that I would get off of looking at this just at first glance is what it might sound like today. But after, there's a couple, you could use the word after in a couple of different ways. So think of a sentence after the manner of. That's not using the word after as in a time like first this, then this, then this, right? So it's not that type of thing. So it says after that he gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years. Well, who was the first judge? The first judge is Moses. He was the first one that God ordained to really be a judge because he's the one that was given the law. And you remember when he was judging Israel, he was judging them based off of God's law. He had to get some help in being judges to make decisions based on God's law. He was where the first judge started. So this 450 years, it's the space of the judges, which includes Moses, which goes back. He was 40 years old when basically he saw the burning bush and God appeared unto him and he was going to, that's when he was basically appointed as the judge, right? But then what did he do? He handled it wrong. He killed that Egyptian with his bare hands when he was trying to free his people. And he saw this injustice being done. He ended up killing the Egyptian and then he had to go and flee for 40 years. But at 80 years old, he came back. So you have 40 years right there and then he's in Egypt and then he, you know, and the whole thing. So this time frame of 450 years actually doesn't contradict the 396 years that we get here when you consider the fact that the time of the judges spans from Moses until, up to and including Samuel. So I just want to throw that out there. I'll probably do a better job of going into detail because I don't have it just completely, you know, all the numbers and everything written down in my notes to refer back to. I'm doing this from memory. But go back if you would to 1 Kings chapter 6. I just want to point that out. Actually go back, turn if you would to 2 Chronicles chapter 3. You should be keeping a finger on 1 Kings 6. Turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 3. Anytime I'm doing a Bible study, when there's numbers there I always like trying to figure everything out and see how it all fits in there. But this is one of the things that I came across and I actually hadn't seen this one before either. I've spent a lot of time, like I said, researching what atheists are saying, what other people are saying to say there's contradictions in the King James Bible. And I enjoy it a little bit. I just like seeing it. I like seeing what is there. I don't mind the challenge one bit. I really don't. I don't run away from it. I'm not scared of it. I may not have all the answers. I may not have a good answer for you. I don't know. I mean, so far, the things I haven't been able to answer, I've heard very good reasonable explanations for that I would say, you know what, yeah, that sounds right. But anyhow, 1 Kings chapter 6. So we have that that gives us this timeline to say, okay, this is when it started, the fourth year is when the temple started to be built. And what we see here in the building of the temple and the description of it all is that it matches really closely to the tabernacle. God had very, very specific details on how the tabernacle was to be built because it is a picture of the tabernacle that's in heaven, the mercy seat in heaven, the things that are in heaven. These are a figure of those things that actually exist. So when you're reading through Exodus and you're reading all of those details and you're going, why is this in here? There's a good reason for that. Now I don't know what all the reasons are. And you know what, there's honestly in this chapter, this is difficult to study out because I know that there's more meaning than what I'm going to get into tonight, even down to the types of wood that was used. I see there's olive tree that's used to, well, let me just describe the temple real briefly. So you've got what's called the oracle. The oracle is like the holiest of holies. That is the inner sanctum. That is the inner sanctuary of the whole temple. That's that area. It's separated by doors. That's where the Ark of the Covenant is that has the Ten Commandments in it and Aaron's rod that budded and they put the manna in there. So they held all these things in this ark. It's like a box that had those things in it. You had the mercy seat and then two cherubims that have their wings spread so that one wing touches the wall on this side and the other wing of the other cherub touches the wall on that side and their wings meet in the middle and they are looking inward at the mercy seat. And this is the design within the oracle. Now this matches pretty much identically with the tabernacle that they had, that God gave for them to build. And then outside of that is just the larger part of the temple and the whole inside is overlaid with gold. The floors, the ceiling, the walls, you've got carved work. They laid the foundation of stone and then overlaid that with wood and then overlaid that with gold. So everything on the inside is just this pure gold. You know the cherubims, everything is just gold inside. Really beautiful and really ornate on the inside. So where was I going with that? The description of the temple. Yeah, I have you 2 Chronicles 3 but there was one other point I wanted to make. That's alright. It's alright. We'll keep going. It matches the pattern after what's in heaven but that's what the tabernacle is. They're building a temple. Oh, the details. They make the details. He makes it very specific because it's matching what's in heaven and it also shows us too when you read through those that God does care a lot about details. He really does. He's a God that, you know, we have a tendency to just be like, oh well, whatever. As long as your heart's in the right place, everything's just fine. But that's not the way that God is. Now there may be certain areas where He's like that for where you do your best and He gives you a lot of freedom as far as what's acceptable to Him. But there's also many areas where He's very specific and very detailed and those are the areas you don't want to stray from. Like as in the offering up the incense, for example. God gave them the whole layout. He said, this is the way you do it. This is the way that you offer the sacrifices. These are the sacrifices you're going to make. This is the order you do it in. These are the days you do it in. Here's the garments you're going to be wearing. Here's the order. Very detailed and specific on how He wants things done. He says, here's the incense. Here's how you're going to make the incense, the ingredients you're going to put into it. That is what I want you to put, burn before Me in My temple. And when Nadab and Abiut took it and said, no, we're going to offer up something different, God struck them dead. God ordained the Levites to be in charge of taking down and putting up the tabernacle as they were traveling around. And anyone who wasn't a Levite, guess what? The same thing would happen to them. There's so many things that God is very specific about and we need to make sure that when God is very specific about it, that we're paying real close attention to what God's saying because He's serious about these things. So, anyhow, I don't want to get too far off on that rabbit trail. The next thing I want to show you though is the location of the temple. 2 Chronicles chapter 3 is actually a pretty parallel with 1 Kings chapter 6. It talks about a lot of the same things. And 1 Kings chapter 6 actually does not give us this information. It just goes into a lot of the measurements. But 2 Kings chapter 3, look at verse number 1. The Bible reads, Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And besides the numbers, another thing that we'll see is there's a lot of significance in places in the Bible where things happen. The Mount of Olives, for example, is a very significant place in the Bible where a lot of things are going to be happening. That is where Jesus Christ gave His great sermon on the mount. That is where Jesus Christ was seen ascending up into heaven. And that's where I believe Jesus Christ, when He comes back, is going to be coming down at the Mount of Olives. I literally believe that it's going to be at that same place. Just because they said in the same manner you saw Him go up, He's going to come back. And there's significance to the places and locations. So, here in 2 Chronicles chapter 3, turn if you go to Genesis 22, it says that the temple, of course, was built in Jerusalem, but specifically in Mount Moriah. And this is the place that the Lord appeared unto David at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Now, if you remember this story, David had numbered the children of Israel. And God said not to do that. It was not of God to count and to get the full number of everyone that was in Israel. So, as a result of David's sin when he did that, he said, okay, you've got three choices. Choose one of them. And he said you could be destroyed of your enemies, you could have a famine, or you can have, well, yeah, but that was part of the, or the pestilence, right? So, there's two things, though, that he'd be in man's hand, and then the last one was God's hand. And he chose the last one. It was three days, basically, of the pestilence when the angel of the Lord came to destroy him. So, when God was going to just destroy Jerusalem, he stopped here at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite where David got on his knees and he was just like, you know, God, don't take this sin out on everyone else. Take it down on me, on my house, and everything. And God showed mercy here at this location. But Mount Moriah, you're in Genesis 22. Look at verse number 2. Bible reads, and he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. So, the land was called Moriah and he's going into one of the mountains. I believe this is what became known as Mount Moriah later, which is where the temple is. And what's the temple? It's a place where you offer up sacrifices unto God. And isn't it interesting that all the way back in Abraham's day, that's where Abraham was told to offer up Isaac, his son, as an offering unto the Lord, a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. These things are really cool. When you put it together, you start to see how, wow, look at that. This happened in the same place. 1 Chronicles 21. 1 Chronicles chapter 21. This is the story now we'll see the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Because this is the same place. The place that Abraham went and took Isaac to offer him up just so happens to be the same place, I believe, that is the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So, I'm going to just skip through a few verses here in 1 Chronicles 21. Verse number 15, by reason God sent an angel into Jerusalem to destroy it. And as he was destroying, the Lord beheld and he repented him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed, it is enough, stay now thine hand and the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. That's where God repented and stopped him from doing any more. Verse 18, then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So this is now where David's setting up an altar. Verse 26, and David built there an altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings and called upon the Lord and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering and the Lord commanded the angel and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof. At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. For the tabernacle of the Lord which Moses made in the wilderness and the altar of the burnt offering were at that season in the high place at Gibeon but David could not go before it to inquire of God for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord. So this now becomes the new spot where God wants his altar to be set up. David couldn't go to the tabernacle which was the high place at Gibeon. The high place at Gibeon mind you, that was the great high place where Solomon had offered his 10,000 rams and everything right before God said, hey, ask of me what you want. When he took over that kingdom. So we see how these places all fit together and more of the meaning behind where these places are and it's interesting how the same places are used over and over again by God to teach us a little bit more truth and also I think to guide us into the way things are going to be in the future also. When Jesus Christ comes back and rules and reigns, he's physically going to be in Jerusalem. That's pretty clear from the Bible also, like earthly, physically Jerusalem for that millennial reign of Christ, that is where it's going to be. That kingdom is going to be set up once again. Let's go back to 1 Kings 6. I'm not going to re-read every verse through here unless I have something I want to point out because a lot of this is just literally describing the dimensions of the temple and I don't have that much insight into knowing why 20 cubits is that important. Honestly, I don't know. So, look at, we'll start reading verse number five here in 1 Kings chapter six. And against the wall of the house he built chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the Oracle and he made chambers round about. Oh, there's one more thing, I kind of remember now where I was going earlier when I was describing the entire temple with the Oracle. The word Oracle isn't mentioned very many times in the Bible. It's mentioned here, it's mentioned in 1 Chronicles, what also in the parallel passages, but also it was mentioned when it was describing the council of Ahithophel. When David left the kingdom when Absalom was taking over, Ahithophel was David's counselor and the way they described the council of Ahithophel, they said was as if someone went to the Oracle of God. So, it was like his counsel was like directly from the Word of God. Well, that word Oracle comes from the Oracle here that we see in the temple because that is the holiest of holy places in the midst where the tabernacle is and when the glory of the Lord fills the temple, so you'll see that oftentimes, but you have a tendency, I know at least I have a tendency to read over a lot of that and you don't really think about what that means. The glory of the Lord, glory means a brightness or a shining. So, when God's presence was in the temple or in the tabernacle in the wilderness, what that means is that just this bright light would shine out of the midst of that holiest of holies to symbolize God's presence in their land and that God was going to dwell with them and be with them there and that would emanate from the Oracle from that holy place and that mercy seat is like God's throne basically. It's the mercy seat of judgment. So, anyhow, I wanted to make that known just so you're wondering what's the Oracle. Oracle is just that innermost sanctuary in the temple. So, this describes that around the outside of the temple then there's these chambers like little rooms and probably used for storage. We don't know exactly what they used them for. Verse 6, the nethermost chamber was five cubits broad, the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad. So, there's three levels, three floors, and as you get higher they get a little bit wider for the width and it says that for without in the wall of the house he made narrowed rests round about that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house. So, when they made these chambers or these rooms, they didn't like hammer the walls into the house. They just made a ledge or a rest for them to set the beams down upon when they were creating the house. And this is leading into the next point, verse number seven, and the house when it was in building was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building. You say, well, why was that? Well, turn if you would to Exodus chapter 20. And I believe this is their way of just trying to keep the place holy and sanctified and set apart was that the sound of these metal and the clamoring of the tools and stuff being built was not going to be heard, that they had everything pretty much ready to go when it was delivered so that all they had to do was set it up and they weren't, you know, doing any of that type of work, fastening it when it got there. So, and the reason for this, I believe, is because they're following the model for the temple with the tabernacle. And in Exodus chapter 20, of course, we have the Ten Commandments, but it talks about building an altar there because the purpose of the temple, again, is to offer sacrifices. It's to have the altar. It's to go and offer God the sacrifices that were required under the Mosaic law during that time. Look at verse 24 of Exodus chapter 20. Bob reads, an altar of earth thou shalt make unto me and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen in all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee and I will bless thee. So God's saying, you know what, I want an altar of earth. Make it out of mud, make it out of the clay, make it out of the ground. Look at verse 25, and if thou wilt make me an altar of stone. So he's saying, I want an altar of earth, but you know what, if you're going to use stone, if you're going to use rocks to build the altar, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it, neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar that thy nakedness be not discovered upon them. So he's saying, I don't want you using your tools upon the stones. You just build that altar based on the God-made stones, not this man-made building of creating an altar to sacrifice unto the Lord. I think that the reason why they didn't have the tool sounding and everything being chopped up there was in recognition of this commandment. And you don't have to turn it, but Deuteronomy 27 basically says the same exact thing as we see in Exodus 20. I'll just read it for you, verse 4. Therefore it shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day in Mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster, and there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones, thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them. Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones, and thou shalt offer the burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God. And we see the foundation that was laid here for the temple was of these whole stones, and if they did any hewing, it was done not here at this place, and they would bring it in. So the foundation isn't exactly the same as the altar, but I think just in reverence to these commandments of using your tools and stuff, they didn't want to do that. They wanted to keep it as natural as possible, if you will, right? When they were building the entire house. So go back, if you would, to 1 Kings chapter 6. And starting in verse 11, about a reason the word of the Lord came to Solomon saying, concerning this house which thou art in building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes and execute my judgments and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then will I perform my word with thee which I spake unto David thy father, and I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. And you know, I don't understand the people who are Zionists and the people are all about Israel Israel Israel these days that are Christians. I don't know what they do with verses like this because he's making this abundantly clear, and I've gone over this in the past and other sermons, that God's not a respecter of persons. He gave them this covenant and said, here's what you need to do. If you do these things, I'm not going to forsake you. If you're keeping my commandments, if you're doing what I'm telling you to do, I'll be with you. And you know what? He was with them while they were pretty much, you know, promoting the Lord, not going after strange gods and everything else. But I'll tell you what, God is not in the middle of modern day Israel today. He's not setting up his house there because they are not turned to him. They worship false gods. They carry the star of their god, Remphan. They worship a false god. They don't have the son, therefore they don't have the father. Turn, if you would, to Psalm 122. It's very conditional. You think about it, our salvation is conditional. If thou believeth with all thine heart, right? That's the condition. That's an easy condition to meet. That's really simple. And as a result of that condition, he gives you everlasting life. Well, the condition for God, for his name to be found in Israel and Jerusalem, was a lot harder than that. Because he said, if thou wilt walk in my statutes and execute my judgments and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then will I perform my word with thee. That covenant is way different than the covenant of salvation. This covenant had a lot more attached to it on conditions that Israel had to meet. And Israel has been forsaken because they have forsaken the Lord. And it's as simple as that. You can't get any clearer. But, you know, I appreciate the entire story about this, but I want to touch on it today because we see this concept here in 1 Kings chapter 6 of people who want to say, you know, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Have you ever heard that before? People say, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Well, you want to know where that comes from? That comes from Psalm 122. And we're going to see that right here. But what I'm going to do is explain why that was very applicable then and what it means. And this isn't just for all time to just always pray for Jerusalem regardless of its state. Look at verse number 1. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. So we're starting off talking about the house of the Lord. Now let me ask you this. As New Testament believers, we believe that the house of the Lord is in the local church, right? The pillar and ground of the truth, right, is the church. But even, let's just say back then the house of the Lord, they're talking about the temple, right? Or the tabernacle. I mean either one. I mean at this time if David's writing this, he could be talking about the, you know, the tabernacle or the temple that was going to be built. Let's go to the house of the Lord. Well, is that temple even there today in Jerusalem? Nope. Is the tabernacle there? No. So the house of the Lord isn't in Israel no matter how you want to define it. Now if there's a church there of believers, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ there, you could call that a house of the Lord, right? But it's not the house or it's a house of the Lord. I mean there's multiple churches and that's no problem saying that, but that's not what the Zionists are going to be referring to. So let's keep reading those. Let's see what this Psalm says. Let us go into the house of the Lord. It was glad. Verse 2, our feet shall stand within that gate so Jerusalem, Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together, whether the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord under the testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. So they take this verse and just say yoink. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem so that we can prosper because we love you. But everything that's being described in Jerusalem in this Psalm doesn't exist there at all today. Thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Are they in Israel today? No. Are they ruling from the seed of David, carrying on the tradition of his father, ruling with righteousness and judgment according to the law of the Lord? No. That's not happening. Look at verse 7. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. Now, was this going on in Jerusalem during David's day? Yeah. When you're blessing the godly, when you're doing that, then you will be blessed. When you're praying for the peace of God's people, then that is a good thing to do. Again, the key there lies in the definition of who are God's people. It's always been believers, but let's keep going here. Verse number 8. For my brethren and companion's sakes, I will now say peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good. So these are the reasons. He says pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. And then he's saying it's for my brethren and companion's sakes. For his brothers, for other believers, and because of the house of the Lord. The house of the Lord isn't there. The brethren aren't there. So why would we apply this verse for us to pray for the priests of Jerusalem today? He gave the reasons for praying for the peace of Jerusalem. It's not there. Now, I'm not saying I'm for war in Jerusalem. I'm just saying there's no reason to pray for the good and God's blessings and everything else upon a wicked nation. Why should we bless the ungodly? The Bible says not to do that. So turn back if you would to Kings chapter 6. We'll be finishing up here. Like I said, we're not going to read through all of these dimensions and stuff. We're actually just going to skip ahead to the end of the chapter and then there's a few points I want to make that are kind of more abstract that we could learn just from the temple and the way that it was built and how we can apply that today on a more abstract level. Look at verse number 37 there. The last two verses we'll read. In the fourth year was the foundation of the house of the Lord laid in the month Ziph. And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it. So it took Solomon seven years to build the temple. From laying the foundation to getting everything done. The wood, the overlaying, the gold, all that stuff. And that's when they were at their richest point. Solomon had all these great resources. They had peace and everyone was helping him out. It took them seven years. So it's a great work to build all that. The second, of course, this temple gets destroyed when it gets carried away in the Babylon. Just completely destroyed. But then they rebuild it when they come back, right? Ezra and Nehemiah when they go in and they rebuild the temple. And turn if you would now to Matthew 23. Because we saw there it took Solomon seven years. It took him 40 years, I believe, to build the second temple. But you remember the Pharisees said unto Jesus when he said, you know, destroy this temple and in three days I'll build it up again. And they couldn't understand what he was saying. He was like, what are you talking about? Because the temple was huge. I mean, it was magnificent. It had all these great things. And they're just thinking about the physical. They're thinking about this physical structure of the temple. Like, what do you mean you're going to build it in three days? Well, I'll read this from you. First Corinthians chapter three verse 16. Because we're reading about the temple. We're reading about the building of the temple. How do we apply that today? Well, first Corinthians 3 16 says, I know, excuse me, know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. So one of the things that we could look at when we're looking at all the details going into the temple in the Old Testament where God's spirit would dwell in that physical temple. He's saying, you know what? You are the temple of God. And this is the greater truth that's being taught about that Old Testament temple anyways, is that you say, you know what? Your body is the temple. Because as New Testament believers, when you get saved, the Holy Spirit moves in. You receive God's spirit inside of you. So now your body is that temple containing and housing the spirit of God. So when we look at all the details of the temple, we can apply that almost internally to us as being the temple of God. Now, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're not even that religious. The vast majority of people, when you walk into a place that's supposed to be like a church, this is called a house of God, you have respect unto it, right? I mean, you just naturally do. Before I was even saved, if I were going to, and it doesn't even, it didn't even matter like really much about the place, you know, your tendency is going to be show a little bit of respect in a holy place, right? Well, we need to keep that in mind. There's a lot of places that aren't holy places, but they still get that reverence. As the children of God with the Holy Spirit residing inside of you, we have a body that is a temple. And we need to be taking care of our temple and reverencing it in a sense that let's not just be destructive and not care about what we do with our bodies and care about what goes into it and ingesting all kinds of poison and all kinds of other things that's going to be harmful for our body and just do whatever joining. And in 1 Corinthians, it's talking about fornication and joining your body, which is a temple of God with a harlot or with a prostitute, with a whore, and defiling that temple. Because God looks at your body and says, you know what, that's the temple of the Holy Spirit. Show some respect and some reverence to it. It doesn't mean to worship your body because just as much as you don't worship the temple, people didn't worship the temple that Solomon built, they worshiped the Lord inside of the temple. We should be worshiping the Holy Spirit, not our own bodies, but you still look out for the well-being of the temple that's housing the Spirit. And we should be doing the same with our bodies as well, whether because of fornication or because of anything else, you know, drugs, alcohol, food, whatever, what have you. We should be keeping our temples very well. But Solomon's temple, as we read, very beautiful on the inside, very ornate. He had lots of decoration, gold, everything, right? Beautiful, beautiful on the inside. But did you notice that not much description is given about the outside of the temple? There's not a whole lot. We're going to get into more description next week. Doesn't tell you a whole lot about what it looked like from the outside. A lot of detail about the inside. Matthew 23, I have you there, right? Look at verse number 25. Matthew 23, verse 25. The Bible reads, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion, excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within, full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. The temple of God, our body is a temple. We shouldn't be focused so much about, you know, spend all of our time focusing on the outside, in the words of, you know, just the, oh, hey, God bless you, brother. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. And just having this religious speak so that people can look at you on the outside and try to lift you up like they did with the Pharisees, what the Pharisees cared about, right? They cared about the salutations and the greetings at the marketplace. They cared about what people thought of them. They wanted to have the uppermost room at the feasts. They cared about how they looked on the outside, but their inside was dying and corrupt and full of bones, full of dead men's bones. If we're going to be worried about our temples, let's start by worrying about the inside, because that's what matters the most. Our integrity, our beliefs, the things that drive us, the things that we do from our heart, we need to focus on that first. Let's try to get the inside looking immaculate, looking like it's gold tried within and without, shining forth so that way it could go through to the outside. He's not saying the outside is just completely unimportant, but the focus needs to be on the inside, because if you get the inside taken care of, the outside will take care of itself. Don't be so focused on the outward, you know, focus way more on the inside. Turn to Luke 6, the last place we're going to turn tonight, Luke chapter 6. The next time you're doing your Bible reading, you're going through the temple, keep that in mind that we are our bodies of the temple of the Holy Ghost. We're a temple of God in the New Testament and see what type of applications that you could make from what you're reading and seeing in the Old Testament to what we have today. Luke 6, verse number 45. Verse number 45, the Bible reads, He is like a man which built an house, and dig deep, and laid the foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth and doeth not is like a man that, without a foundation, built an house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. When we're focusing on the inside, we need to not just hear. I mean, we're here in the words of God, but what are you doing with it? You need to put it into action, and putting things into action is going to come from inside. You need the strength, the inner strength, to do the things that you know are right, to do the things that the Bible's telling us to do. And God's saying, you know, you're just going to be a hypocrite when you you could say the things, but not do them. He said, why are you calling Lord, Lord? Why are you even bothering saying, Lord, Lord, but you're not doing anything? He says, if you hear and do, you're going to be founded, you're going to be grounded, you're going to have that solid foundation, you're not going to be moved. But if you hear and decide not to take any action on it, you'll be destroyed. And it's a very simple truth, but it's one that needs to be taken to heart, and we need to take that analysis internally with ourselves. If you were to look inside yourself today, and look into your thoughts, and look into your desires, and look into what it is that you're doing with your life, and if you were viewing your inner workings as a temple, how beautiful would that temple be? How pure would it be? Would it be a place that you think you would be comfortable with inviting God to come in and join you in there? We ought to take a consideration for that, and the areas that they're lacking that are all dirty, that you just want to close the door on those things and not let anyone see those. Let's clean those up. Let's get it going. Let's think of our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit, because they are. And let's work on the inside to make it a place that is suitable for our Lord in heaven. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for these words that you've given us, dear Lord, for the truth that we find in the Bible. God, I pray for your direction in all of our lives, dear Lord. Help us to do a check on the inner temple of our bodies, dear Lord. Help us to clean up the areas that need to be cleaned up, dear God. And we just pray for your wisdom and guidance. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.